Most passenger cars are provided with a locking system that prevents access to a particular storing compartment of the car. Traditionally, the means provided for this purpose has been a glove compartment lockable by an ordinary key that may or may not be handed out to someone who is to borrow or park the car.
Modern cars make use of electronic locking systems, including remote controls, which have made it possible to provide cars with a locking system that can prevent access to the luggage boot even if the main key, i.e. the remote control, is handed out. By setting the electronic locking system in a certain mode, sometimes called “Private locking” or “Secrecy mode”, only the side doors can be unlocked by the remote control. One example of how to set the system in this mode is to provide the remote control with a releasable metal key that activates the secrecy mode when used to lock the glove compartment. By also locking the rear seats when the secrecy mode is activated, access is denied to the luggage boot to a person using the car, e.g. a person parking the car at fashionable hotels or restaurants (“Valet parking”).
For station wagons, vans and similar vehicles, the above described electronic secrecy system is not applicable since access to the cargo space at the rear of the vehicle is possible also from the inside of the vehicle.
A way of preventing access to a part of the cargo space is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,441,183 which discloses a “compartmentalizer unit” in the form of a box with a hinged lid forming part of the upper, horizontal side of the box. The unit is intended to fit into a lower part of the cargo space of a station wagon and to be easily installed in and removed from the cargo space. Provided that the walls and doors defining the cargo space are suitably sloped upwardly and inwardly, the lid can not be raised and the unit can not be tilted to gain access to items stored in the box when the both the lid and the backdoor or tailgate of the vehicle are closed. Drawbacks of such a unit are that it prevents access to storage compartments located below the load floor and that it takes up a great deal of space and thus limits the space available for the cargo. Although the compartmentalizer unit may be removed from the cargo space, it becomes troublesome to alternately install and remove the unit when access to lower storage compartments is needed or when different types of cargo are to be transported. In addition, the proposed unit is difficult to apply to vehicles where the walls and doors do not slope in a suitable way.
Another variant is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,037,154, which discloses a lockable package tray installed within the luggage compartment to conceal luggage placed below. A drawback of such a package tray is that it, in similarity with U.S. Pat. No. 5,441,183, takes up a great deal of space.